Posts Tagged ‘robotics’

Cool new tech is always fun, but when it marries two of your favorite things, it’s love at first sight. That’s exactly what this new robot did for our very own Daniele Mendez. In the last 4-5 years, she has spent countless hours on both the tennis courts as well as working alongside her robotics team, so she absolutely could not resist this product.

Tennibot is a smart robotic tennis ball collector that scoots around the tennis court, picking up all of your practice tennis balls. Not only does it take the grunt work out of picking up the balls by hand so you have more time to practice, but it also looks cool in the process. With the price point starting at $399 for the personal version and up to $1,699 for the larger club version, they are looking forward to being able to ship by the end of 2016.

Not all of the technology being shown off at CES is designed to give consumers convenient and faster access to the latest forms of information and entertainment. Some of it is created with the idea of making certain tasks just a little bit easier.

That’s the thought behind Somabar, a fully robotic bartender that can create and mix a beverage without so much as the unscrewing of a cap. The app-controlled drink mixer uses six different pods to blend together over 300 different cocktails, or the user can program their own creation into the app. Following feedback from its Kickstarter campaign, Somabar also comes with a full water-flushing system for automatic cleaning.

Inspired by CEO Dylan Purcell-Lowe’s travels to Japan, where he witnessed prepackaged rum and Cokes being served from a machine, Somabar is set to be released in July and will retail at $449. The robotic bartender can be purchased at http://www.somabarkickstarter.com.

We’ve all dreamed of owning our very own robot. Imagine, having a mechanical friend who’s always there and won’t mind when you tell it to fetch another cold drink from the kitchen. Well, those robot dreams are quickly becoming real thanks to the efforts of companies like Meccano.

Nick spoke with Fraser from Meccano. Fraser explained that many people had probably already heard of the Meccano brand, as it was known as Erector for many years in the U.S. He also gave details on an amazing new product, the Meccanoid, which Meccano will bring to stores in August of 2015.

Meccanoid is a four-foot tall humanoid robot that’s built from an easy-to-assemble kit. Upon construction, users can program Meccanoid by using a simple “record-and-playback” system built right into the bot, or via bluetooth-connected smartphone, or USB-connected computer. The potential of Meccanoid is endless as the kit can be broken down into a number of configurations, limited only by the imagination of the builder.

As a part of our Tech Podcast Network coverage of CES 2011, we are featuring a daily countdown of interviews, activities, tech zones, conference tracks and keynotes that will be included in our live coverage.

Femto Forum introduces the deep dive on wireless technology during our interview, and we look at Robotics, Smartphone Track, and Tablet Conferences.